Slashdot videos: Now with more Slashdot!

View

Discuss

Share

We've improved Slashdot's video section; now you can view our video interviews, product close-ups and site visits with all the usual Slashdot options to comment, share, etc. No more walled garden! It's a work in progress -- we hope you'll check it out (Learn more about the recent updates).

itwbennett writes "The only way to rapidly and cost-effectively devolve computer products is to know the composition of the products. But we don't, says blogger Tom Henderson. This industry — largely at the behest of COMPTIA members — pioneered bar coding schemes, asset tagging, and inventory control, and could now also add rapid product devolution to its list of credits. We need a taxonomy, a method to affix material markings, and a database access method that tells the devolvers how to make money. Do this and you could be a billionaire and a hero, says Henderson."

No, this kind of thinking is a result of the lone inventor myth. "If we just had a great idea, we'd be in milk and honey"

What needs to be done is obvious, and already stated. "a taxonomy, a method to affix material markings, and a database access method". Any decent DBA/programmer could design a scheme to do this. The real work is convincing corporations to go along, when there is no obvious quick return on investment. Who would be the first to put their company at a competitive disadvantage in a down economy? (Hard enough in an up economy) The billions that Henderson is talking about have to come from somewhere.

You could set up a company similar to UL labs, that would affix a golden seal to products that met these criteria, then get large organizations on board to set rules that they will give preference to products that have the seal. Not impossible, but the mountains to climb are political (corporate and government), rather than technical.